Posted on November 29, 2024

Birmingham’s 2024 Homicide Total Now Highest in Recent History

Carol Robinson, AL.com, November 24, 2024

A man critically hurt in a southwest Birmingham shooting has died.

Police identified the victim as DeCarlos Perez Smith Jr. He was 22 and lived in Birmingham.

Smith is the city’s 145th homicide this year, pushing the city’s 2024 homicide total to the highest in recent memory.

Smith was shot on Thursday, the same day that three other people were killed in two other incidents.

Until 2022, when there were 144 homicides, the highest number recorded in recent memory was 141 in 1991. The city ended 2023 with 135 homicides.

Birmingham’s all-time record for homicides was in 1933 with 148 killings.

The city’s population today is a little under 197,000 people. In 1933, Birmingham had just under 269,000 people.

Of the city’s homicides this year, 11 have been ruled justifiable and are not deemed criminal. One of the deadly shootings was an officer-involved shooting, and two others happened in previous years but the victims died in 2024.

In all of Jefferson County, there have been 181 homicides including the 145 in Birmingham.

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